September 25, 2013

Food Review: Atrium Perth

September is a beautiful month for me, readers. Since the start of September, I have been spending time with my parents and my aunt, who flew in from Singapore to spend the following two weeks with me and attend my convocation ceremony as I finally receive my Bachelor's degree. This is followed by me picking up my best friends, and my baby sister consecutively - eventually resulting in all of us spending time together in a beautiful holiday mansion we rented.

My dad is also here for his birthday - so I made arrangements to bring my family to The Atrium at Crown Metropol Complex, where the iconic Perth Buswood Casino is.

Buffets are a common theme for birthdays in my family - it's the easiest way to ensure everyone has a beautiful meal no matter their diet preferences, and is a sure way to spend some quality time over quality food, something my family hardly has with me living apart from them. Something about buffets make you take your time with the meal, leaving plenty of time for catch up.

The Atrium is located in the Crown Hotel's very beautiful lobby, and is a sprawling expanse of food and dining. It was crowded despite it being a Monday night, but the large amount of space ensured every booth allowed great privacy and comfort.

As we were seated and my folks got comfortable, I wandered around to take some photos of the buffet's highlights:

Thoroughly impressed by their generous mountains of cold seafood (read: oysters) and expensive parma, I then peered around the hot food sections, from Indian cuisine to Asian to Western to Italian, all with their own department served in heavy duty crockery, steaming and always readily topped up with efficient chefs and wait-staff.

There was a fresh pasta bar, where you can order your pasta cooked with ingredients you want the way you want, served with sides of honeyed carrots (so lovely), and I thoroughly enjoyed the Bolognese pasta. Gleaming slices of roast pork, served with crackling, three different sorts of roast vegetables - sweet potato, potato and pumpkin, pairing perfectly with the freshly grilled slabs of prime rib steaks, served in beef jus soaked in yorkshire pudding. If meat is too heavy for you, they have a lovely salad bar, beautifully flush salmon steaks, sides of gratin or cauliflower in cheese and cream, or steaming bamboo cases of dim sum.

My folks were very impressed by their roast pork and the servings of Asian roasted pork and goose - my dad particularly liked their Indian food, fragrant chickpea curry eaten with soft roti and chicken masala, spicy and creamy on rice.

Dessert, of course, is a sight to behold. Fresh waffles, lovely slices of cakes, puddings and ice cream, served in large waffle cones. My mother was very excited to see fresh honey dripping off a slab of honeycomb, which she enjoyed with some sorbet and hot waffles.

This buffet is extensive - go hungry and eat your heart out. I have been to a few buffets in Perth, and many more in my lifetime but this was very impressive both to me and my family. My dad especially, had a good time with the dessert bar (he has a terrible sweet tooth), and to me that's always a point to the establishment.

I am a generally large eater, and buffets don't make a profit out of me when I visit them. Which is a better way of saying I am very proficient in eating. Yet I found that after a quick sample of most of their items I still have not finished sampling everything on their buffet selection, which is a good sign of their variety.

If you ever need a buffet, especially if you have a dad who has a sweet tooth and is a generally fussy eater, the Atrium should do the trick.

I am busy this month with family, but activities are dwindling down so more food reviews will be coming soon!